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SkySafari 6 Pro | Sluggish When Connected To Celestron WIFI (Solved)

Hi, SkySafari 6 Pro works great as a learning tool to view the skies and see what's availabe to see tonight etc, but as soon as I connect my Celestron Nexstar Evolution HD Telescope to the app it suddenly becomes unusable. The touch on my iPhone (latest version and latest version IOS) takes 10s of seconds to work! Sometimes up to 30 or 40 seconds or more. Touch 'Setttings' icon for example and half a minute later it works and so forth. I've tried everything to get this to work with my telescope as that is how Celestron advertises it. As an IOS app developer myself I've tried just about everything possible that could be causing this. I turned airport on with just the WIFI on to make sure nothing else was effecting it and so forth. Any ideas? Would it help if I youtubed a video showing what it does for you to see?

On another note, there is a second problem I've seen in previous versions of SkySafari, the buttons on the app aren't as responsive or reliable. I've tried adjusting the slew rates etc to no avail. I can press them the shortest times, sometimes they move the telescope slightly, other times the same press will slur the telescope wildly. I use the app to align and connect, but there is no way you can then tweak the alignment with those buttons. 

I really want to use this app for controlling the telescope and am finding it frustrating. Thank you for your time, I'm open to any suggestions. 

Cheers!
Tanya.

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3 comments

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    Bill Tschumy

    Tanyan,

    Not sure what might be going on to cause these delays you are experiencing.  Could yo try downloading the free SkyPortal app and see if you see the same thing there? If so it is likely you have a hardware problem.

     

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    Tanya Puntti

    Thank you for your answer Bill. It's very much appreciated. Ok here is what I've tried since yesterday and it has helped improve it by roughly 80% so am doing a happy dance. I think it is at least useable now. I'll know more when our bad weather subsides.

    I took the apps off all other devices but one (both SkySafari Pro 6 and SkyPortal). I had them on 4 different devices and I do think sometimes multiple devices may have been connected or trying to connect to the telescope. It helped a little but still wasn't happy. So then I turned on airport mode on the device I'm using, turned off my home WIFI so my device wouldn't try reconnecting to it instead of the telescope during use. However what I think made the biggest difference was I then turned off Bluetooth! Not sure why that would be? I also set the Read out Rate to 1. 

    I had someone suggest that the apps work better on Android tablets than IOS? Wondering what your thougths are on this as I do have an Android as well for testing my own app development, so might give that a whirl and see what happens. 

    Thanks again. 

    Tanya.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    Tanya,

    You certainly shouldn't have multiple devices connected to the Celestron Wi-Fi hotspot at the same time.  Just have one connected.

    I don't see why disabling Bluetooth would do anything.  There is very little data flowing between the scope and SkySafari and using Bluetooth simultaneously should not be an issue.

    If the device has a reasonable strong connection to the Celestron Wi-Fi hotspot, it should not try to switch back to your home network.  We have never had to have people turn off there home network to have this work well.  If that is a problem then it indicates the Celestron Wi-Fi radio is having problems.

    In reality, I find iOS works better than Android although the difference is small (if it exists at all).  I would stick with iOS if that is what you prefer.

    You might try rebooting your phone and see if that clears anything up.

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